Watch JK Rowling Talk About New Hero In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

— June 25, 2016

JK Rowling is back in the magic again, with her upcoming film Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, which opens in theaters this coming November. The prequel/spin-off to the Harry Potter series, the movie follows the story of Newt Scamander, who was the author of the textbook of the same name, used by Harry at Hogwarts.

The 50-year-old English author recently shared in a behind the scenes video how the idea for the new book came about and the film’s new hero. Rowling explains her process for developing these type of characters in the featurette, saying “My heroes are always people who feel themselves to be set apart, stigmatized, or othered“.

Newt Scamander, who is played by London-born actor Eddie Redmayne, was a character whose story JK became interested in while writing Harry Potter. The traveling wizard searches the world for magical creatures to study and record, which would eventually become a standard textbook at Hogwarts.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, isn’t a documentary on the “magizoologist”, that would be boring. In the upcoming fantasy film things get a little turned around, leaving Scamander to battle it out to make things right.